What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency or digital currency that records its transactions and new parts of currency are generated by difficult solutions to mathematical equations. It does not operate through a central bank or any centralized money system. It can be transferred by a peer-to-peer network and these transactions are monitored by network nodes and cryptography. They are also recorded in a publicly distributed online ledger called a blockchain.
Bitcoin is used as currency in many ways that are familiar to everyone, and some that are not so familiar. One familiar way is for people to shop online at certain stores that accept cryptocurrency. If you plan on shopping online with bitcoin, you need to check out some of the hints and tips that others have listed. You can just do a little research to find out more about how to use bitcoin in your online shopping.
This article will share some tips on using bitcoin online while you shop, and places to shop. You must be careful and check out the places that you want to buy from to make sure that they are legitimate businesses that are not out to steal your bitcoin. You do not want to lose what has taken you so long to acquire.
Tips on Using Bitcoin While Shopping Online
You will need a bitcoin wallet
Although a bitcoin wallet does not have any government guarantees, it is still the way to do business using bitcoin. You will have to have one that stores your information such as your name and email address. If your bitcoin wallet gets lost or stolen, you will be without it and the money invested in it, so take care of it.
You can purchase bitcoin electronically
You can buy your bitcoin online electronically, however, it is very expensive to purchase one whole bitcoin. You can buy bitcoin in fractions as little as one Satoshi, which is one hundred millionth of a bitcoin. There are many services that sell bitcoins in all sizes and fractions. There are usually service fees that are charged when you buy bitcoins online.
You can also buy bitcoins locally, there is a site called LocalBitcoins.com that allows you to meet people in public places to buy and sell bitcoins. To see other sites that allow you to meet in person to buy and sell bitcoins, look here. You must be careful when dealing with bitcoins this way, as you do all sales in public places. You can get scammed with bitcoins just as easily as any other monetary scam.
Shop with bitcoin online
There are a lot of online shops that accept bitcoins now, and more are popping up all the time. There are some that you have heard of before, such as Overstock.com and Newegg. It is easy to buy online using bitcoins, you just need to make sure that you have a wallet set up to make the payments.
Places to use bitcoin online
As stated above, there are many places to use bitcoin online. Listed below are just a few of those places. You can shop using bitcoin at these places as easily as if you were using cash. You need to be very careful using bitcoin, here are some tips for you: https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/answer/Is-Bitcoin-safe-The-truth-about-Bitcoin-security-and-crypto-currency. This site will help you to learn more about bitcoin safety.
Microsoft
Microsoft is one of the biggest names that everyone knows, and they accept bitcoin as a method of payment. At Microsoft, they began using bitcoin in 2014 and you can use it to buy its operating system, games, and apps among other things.
Overstock
Overstock also began accepting bitcoin in 2014 and now accepts many forms of cryptocurrency. You can use your bitcoin to buy anything that Overstock sells from furniture and home products to electronics such as computers and television sets.
Planet Express
This company provides a United States mail and package forwarding service for individuals that live outside the United States. They have been accepting bitcoins as a form of payment to make things easier for their international customers.
Coingate
This company sells many different gift cards from a variety of sources including Best Buy, Amazon, and eBay. You can use your bitcoins to buy these gift cards and use them in the same way you would use any gift card.
These are just a few tips for using bitcoin online and a few places that accept them online. You can do some more research to see what other places will accept bitcoin as payment. There are more and more places that accept them daily. Just be careful and treat your bitcoin as cash but watch it even more carefully since there is no entity that guarantees bitcoin at this time.